Natural killer cell, SEM


Natural killer cell. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a natural killer cell (NK) (red) attacking a liver cancer cell. NK cells of a healthy individual were cultured with hepatoma (HepG2) cells. Natural killer cells, also known as large granular lymphocytes (LGL), are a type of cytotoxic lymphocyte critical to the innate immune system that belong to the rapidly expanding family of known innate lymphoid cells (ILC) and represent 5–20% of all circulating lymphocytes in humans. NK cells provide rapid responses to virus-infected cell and other intracellular pathogens acting at around 3 days after infection, and also respond to tumor formation. Magnification x 7000 at 10cm wide. Specimen courtesy of the Maini Lab. UCL.


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Photo credit: © STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
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